JUST HOW IT ALL BEGAN
It was one of those soft, irresponsible days of April. The heavens
clouded up and wept like a naughty child upon the least pretext; yet
between the showers the sun warmed the glad earth, and coaxed the
catkins into bloom, and even expanded the first buds of the huge lilac
bush at the corner of the Day house.
This was a special occasion; one could easily guess that from the bustle
manifest about the place. Aunt 'Mira and Janice had been busy since
light. Mrs. Day was not in the habit of "givin' things a lick and a
promise" nowadays when she cleaned house. No, indeed! They gave the
house a "thorough riddin' up," and were scarcely through at dinner-time.
Then they hurried the dinner dishes out of the way, drove Marty and his
father out of the house and hurried to change into fresh frocks; for
company was expected.
The ladies' sewing circle of the Union Church was to meet with Mrs.
Day. These meetings of late had become more like social gatherings than
formerly. The afternoon session was better attended; then came a hearty
supper to which the ladies' husbands, brothers, or sweethearts were
invited; and everything wound up with a social evening.
Aunt 'Mira and Janice had made many extra preparations for the occasion
in the line of cooked food; there were two gallon pots of beans in the
oven cooking slowly; and every lady, as she arrived, handed to Janice
some parcel or package containing cooked food for the supper.
The girl was busy looking after these donations when once the members of
the sewing circle began to arrive; and Aunt 'Mira's pantry had never
before been so stacked with food. Marty stole in to gaze at the goodies,
and whispered:
"Hi tunket! Just you go away for half an hour, Janice, and lemme be
here. I could do something to that tuck right now."
"And so soon after dinner?" cried his cousin. "I wonder if boys _are_
hollow all the way down to their heels, as they say they are?"
"It ain't that," grinned Marty. "But a feller runs so many chances in
this world of going hungry, that he ought ter fill up while he can. You
just turn your back for a while and I'll show you, Janice."
But his cousin turned the key in the pantry door and slipped it into her
pocket for safety. "We'll have no larks like _that_, Master Marty," she
declared.
Mrs. Scattergood and 'Rill were among the first to arrive; and then came
Mrs. Middler, the minister's wife. Mrs. Beasely was there, and Walky
Dexter's wife, and the druggist's sister, who kept house for him; and
Mrs. Poole, the doctor's wife; and Mrs. Marvin Petrie, who had married
children living in Boston and always spent her winters with them, and
had just come back to Poketown again for the season.
Many of the ladies of Poketown never thought of making up their spring
frocks, or having Mrs. Link, the milliner, trim their Easter bonnets,
until Mrs. Marvin Petrie came from Boston. She was supposed to bring
with her the newest ideas for female apparel, and her taste and advice
was sought on all sides when the ladies sat down to their sewing in the
big sitting-room of the old Day house.
Mrs. Marvin Petrie, however, was one of those persons who seem never to
absorb any helpful ideas. Her forte was mostly criticism. She could see
the faults of her home town, and her home people, in comparison with the
Hub; but she had never, thus far, led in any benefit to Poketown.
"You can't none of you understand how glad I am to git to my daughter
Mabel's in the winter; and then how glad I am to shake the mud of
Boston off my gaiters when it comes spring," declared the traveled lady,
who had a shrill voice of great "carrying" quality. When Mrs. Marvin
Petrie was talking there was little other conversation at the sewing
circle. Her comments upon people she had met and things she had seen,
were in the line of a monologue.
"I do sartainly grow tired of Poketown when it comes fall, and things is
dead, and the wind gets cold, and all. I'm sartain sure glad to git shet
of it!" she pursued on this particular afternoon. "And then the first
sight of Boston--and the mud--and the Common and Public Library,--and
the shops, and all, make me feel like I was livin' again.
"Mabel says to me: 'How kin you live, Maw, most all the year in
Poketown! Why, I was so glad to git away from it, that I'd walk the
streets and beg before I'd go back to it again!' An' she would; Mabel's
lively yet, if she has been married ten years and got three children.
"But by this time o' year--arter bein' three months or more in the
hurly-burly of Boston, I'm _de_-lighted to git into the country. Ye see,
city folks keep dancin' about so. They're always on the go. They ain't
no rest for a body."
"But you ain't got ter go because other folks dooes, Miz' Petrie,"
suggested old lady Scattergood. "Now, when I go ter see my son-in-law at
Skunk's Holler, I jest sit down an' fold my hands, an' _rest_."
"Skunk's Holler!" murmured one of the other women. "To hear Miz'
Scattergood talk, one 'ud think she was traveled, too. An' she ain't
never been out o' sight o' this lake, I do believe."
"If ye don't go yourself, you feel's though you had," said Mrs. Petrie,
with good nature. "So much bustle around you--yes. An' so I tell my
daughters. I git enough of it b'fore spring begins."
"But," said the minister's wife, timidly, "after all, there isn't so
much difference between Poketown and Boston, excepting that Boston is so
very much bigger. People are about the same everywhere. And one house is
like another, only one's bigger----"
"Now, that's right foolish talk, Miz' Middler!" exclaimed the lady so
recently from the Hub. "The people's just as different as chalk is from
cheese; and there ain't a church in Boston--and there's hundreds of
'em--that don't make our Union Church look silly."
"But, Miz' Petrie," cried one inquiring body. "Just what is it that
makes Boston so different from Poketown? After all, folks is folks--and
houses is houses--and streets is streets. Ain't that so?"
"Wa-al!" The traveled lady was stumped for a moment. Then she burst out
with: "There! I'll tell ye. It's 'cause there's some order in the city;
ev'rything here is haphazard. Course, there's poor sections--reg'lar
_slums_, as they call 'em--in Boston. But the poor, dirty buildings and
the poor, dirty streets, are in sort of a bunch together. They're in
spots; they ain't dribbled all through the town, mixed up with fine
houses, and elegant squares, and boulevards. Nope. Cities know how to
hide their poor spots in some ways. Boston puts its best foot forward,
as the sayin' is.
"But take it right here in Poketown. Now, ain't the good and the bad all
shoveled together? Take Colonel Pa'tridge's fine house on High Street,
stuck in right between Miner's meat shop and old Bill Jones' drygoods
an' groceries--an' I don't know which is the commonest lookin' of the
two."
"There you air right, Miz' Petrie," agreed the Widow Beasely. "Miner's
got so dirty--around his shop I mean--that I hate to buy a piece of meat
there."
"But the other butcher ain't much better," cried another troubled
housewife. "And the flies!"
"Oh, the awful flies!" chorused several.
"Them critters is a pest, an' that's a fac'," declared Mrs. Scattergood.
"Talk abeout the plagues o' Egypt----"
"But Miz' Petrie was tellin' us how Boston was different----"
"My soul and body!" gasped Mrs. Beasely. "I reckon she's told us
enough. It's a fac'. Poketown is all cluttered up--what ain't right down
filthy. An' I don't see as there's anything can be done abeout it."
"Why--Mrs. Beasely--do you believe there is anything so bad that it
can't be helped?" queried Janice, slowly and thoughtfully. It was the
first time her voice had been heard amid the general clatter, since she
had come to sit down. Her nimble fingers were just as busy as any other
ten in the room; but her tongue had been idle.
"They say it's never too late to mend," quote 'Rill Scattergood; "but I
am afraid that Mr. Miner, and Mr. Jones, and some of the rest of the
storekeepers are too old to mend--or be mended!"
"Ain't you right, now, Amarilla!" sniffed her mother.
"'Tain't only the storekeepers," declared Mrs. Petrie, taking up the
tale again. "How many of us--us housekeepers, I mean--insist upon having
things as clean as they should be right around our own back doors?"
"Wa-al," groaned Aunt 'Mira, "it takes suthin' like an airthquake to
start some of the men-folks----"
"Why wait for _them_?" interposed the demure Janice again, knowing that
her aunt would not object if she interrupted her. "Can't we do something
ourselves?"
"I'd like to know what you'd _do_?" exclaimed the helpless Mrs. Middler.
"Why, we could have a regular 'Clean-Up Day' in Poketown, same as they
do in other places."
"Good Land o' Goshen!" ejaculated Mrs. Scattergood. "What's _that_, I'd
like to know, Janice Day? You _do_ have the greatest idees! I never
heard of no 'Clean-Up Day' in Skunk's Holler."
"Perhaps they didn't need any there," laughed Janice, for she was used
to the old lady's sharp tongue and did not mind it.
"Seems to me I--I've heard of such things," said Mrs. Petrie, rather
feebly. She did not wish to be left behind in anything novel.
"Why, a 'Clean-Up Day'," explained Janice, "is justly exactly what it
_is_. Everybody cleans up--yard, cellar, attic, streets, and all. You
get out all your old rubbish, of whatsoever kind, and get it ready to be
carted away; and the town pays for the stuff's being removed to some
place where it can be burned or buried."
"My soul and body!" ejaculated Aunt 'Mira. "Jest the same as though the
town was cleanin' house."
"That's it--exactly," said Janice, nodding. "And all at the same time,
so that the whole town can be made neat at once."
"Now," declared Mrs. Petrie, giving her decided and unqualified
approval, "I call that a right sensible idea. I'm for that scheme,
hammer and tongs! This here Day girl, that I ain't never had the
pleasure of meetin' before, has sartainly got a head on her. I vote we
do it!"